Hundreds of people braved a frightening, torrential downpour to pay final respects to coach Gerry Gallagher at Norman Dean Funeral Home in Denville late last week.
Outside, the place was jam-packed with cars and traffic. For about four hours, nearby Righter Ave. could barely contain the congestion.
Inside, you understood why.
A coach and a man like Gerry Gallagher comes along only once in a generation. If there was an ambassador for New Jersey high school football history, it was Gallagher. No one was as involved in the game and sold it like him. And no one did it with more grace and class.
So they came to Norman Dean from such places as Edinboro (PA.) College, St. Francis College (Loretto, PA) and William Paterson, where Gallagher coached collegiate football. They came from all over Morris County, too, from such schools as Morris Knolls, Delbarton, Montville, Morris Catholic, Parsippany, and Boonton. He graced each of those sidelines down through the years.
Gallagher was beloved in the schools where he worked but was equally revered among all coaches – young, old and in-between – at competing programs, which is why schools such as Parsippany Hills, Roxbury, Butler, West Morris and Lenape Valley and many more took the time to come to his wake.
When word spread about his passing, tributes began flooding in from all over on social media. The amount of lives he touched is simply stunning, from former teammates (he played at Morris Catholic and then William Paterson’s first football teams in the 1960s) and former students to his ex-players and colleagues.
He was football royalty, yes, but even some students that never played for him wrote that he made them feel welcome in his class.
What a life Gerry lived!
Mostly, he was about football. He loved the sport like no one else but he also cherished all of its trappings. Gallagher was into scouting, film work and preparation. He was an old-school Wing-T man, through and through, and loved the day-to-day practice and buildup to the weekend’s game. He treated kids right, whether they were worthy of all-county or a scrawny scout team sophomore. Gerry was a teacher on the sideline and off and everywhere in between.
For many years, he was very influential in the Morris County Coaches Association as well as state-wide. He became a special teams guru and gave clinics to players of all ages. Oftentimes, he had more energy and hop in his 73-year-old step than the players. What a sight to see.
He was a coach of the coaches. Gerry was admired among the coaches who’ve been doing it for 20 years or 30 years … or even longer. But at the same time, he’d never big-time a fresh-faced, up-and-coming assistant coach right out of college. He had reached legendary status but always had time for another coach as a mentor or even father figure.
And that went double if you were on his coaching staff.
When he was at Montville in 2006, he was my Coach of the Year when I was with the Daily Record. When I interviewed him, he shared the credit with his coaching staff. He remarked that it was really a Coaching Staff of the Year award. I’d never heard a coach put it the way he did.
That’s because it was never about him, not ever.
He was a devout man of God. He was not just involved in a Friday morning Bible study on Zoom, he was actively engaged in it.
And the way he acted reflected that. No wonder someone put a Coach’s Bible in his casket the day of his wake.
Here’s a good example of his faith. I know Gerry will be mad at me for finally printing this, but here goes: Many years ago, I found out that he was close to being hired to coach football at a Morris County school but never took it.
Part of his job would have been to run that school’s weight room.
“What happens to the person who runs the weight room now?” Gerry asked.
“Don’t worry,” he was told, “You’ll get it.”
And with that, Gerry refused the job. He didn’t want the person running that weight room to be run off. More so, he didn’t want to work for a school that would treat someone that way.
I don’t remember if Gerry knew that weight room guy or not, but either way, that was a very classy gesture, was it not?
I’d heard that story somewhere else back then so I just had to ask Gerry about it. He said it was true .. but please don’t print it!
Forgive me, Gerry! People need to know this about you. Here is a man who walked his faith. He lived it. Well done, thou good and faithful servant.
Another interesting Gerry Gallagher anecdote: He and I once had a disagreement about the football consolation games. In their first year, I chose to not run the boxscores or a consolation roundup in the next day’s newspaper because those games were “only” consolation games and played at the same time as the state playoff games. Those consolation teams were losing teams playing out the season. They were getting in the way. Go home already!
At least, that’s what I thought.
Gerry called and gently told me I was wrong. These same kids worked hard all week and deserved some accolades for winning the game and not playing out the string.
And you know what? He was right. What a salesman! Remember what I said earlier about being a football ambassador? That was another example, right there!
So he proved me wrong. He didn’t twist my arm or holler or berate me but he reasoned with me – and over time, he convinced me that consolation games were good for high school football.
The next year, you better believe I ran a consolation roundup in the paper.
That is just how he coached. Some coaches carry on and berate their kids in front of everyone. Gerry? He pulled a kid aside and taught him. And his staff followed suit. His son, Bryan, does that at Knolls, and it is a highly effective way of coaching.
Where do you think Bryan got that? I’ll give you three guesses!
Of course, Gerry was beloved by his players. During one game several years ago while coaching special teams at Delbarton, he was injured after a fall and remained at home during a big win over Pope John. Delbarton used a blocked punt and recovered it in the end zone – something Gallagher had taught them.
After the game, Delbarton coach Brian Bowers face-timed Gallagher at midfield and awarded him a game ball. All of the players roared their approval and support for Gallagher as only football players can with helmets pointed to the sky and a loud shout. It was a beautiful thing, well played by Delbarton as much after the game as during it.
At Norman Dean last week, it seemed as if hundreds of people were each lined up ready to present Gerry with a game ball for a life well lived – on and off the football field. The crowd was beyond massive, which is why the funeral home staff had everyone snake their way all around the building, from one room to the next room … and the next room … and the next.
Onlookers waited in line and walked through several rooms before reaching Gallagher’s family. Each room was kind of like the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown – with many different newspaper articles and clippings contained in scrapbooks, plus many awards, trophies, plaques, and championship banners.
There were pictures galore of Gallagher with all of his football families (the many, many teams he coached, successful ones and not-so-successful) as well as his main family (wife Pat, son Bryan, and daughters Cayleigh and Amy, and grandson Kellen).
For one afternoon, Norman Dean was more of a Gerry Gallagher football shrine than a wake. It was every bit a celebration of what he did for football and for others.
Many of the hundreds of lives Gerry Gallagher touched were more than happy to pay him the respect he deserved.
He sure earned it.
